The present invention relates in general to a container apparatus and in particular to a collapsible container apparatus attached to a pallet so as to substantially facilitate the collapse of the container to a minimized profile when storage of the apparatus is required while alternatively providing a selfprompting sealed container area to prevent the migration of materials from within the apparatus to the outside environment when the apparatus is fully deployed.
Pallets have been used for many years by shippers and transporters of various materials. These pallets typically provide a flat and sturdy surface on which materials can be placed and stacked. In order to assure that the materials remain on the pallet, various sized and shaped containers have been attached to the tops of pallets so as to present a bounded area in which to place and/or remove the materials being shipped or stored.
Containers that have been conventionally attached to pallets range from nothing more than four walls and a bottom which utilize the pallet top surface as a support, to more intricate collapsible pallet-container combinations. Most early pallet-container combinations were not collapsible and retained their shape, configuration and dimensions whether in use or not, thereby requiring excess space when stored between uses.
Other configurations of pallet-container combinations allowed for the pallet and container to be formed out of different structural materials, the extra material required, the extra space required when not in use and the extra costs associated therewith were often prohibitive.
In most prior art pallet-container combinations, the larger the combination is, the less manageable it often becomes. Many such combinations require extensive time and effort to fully deploy the container portion of the combination. There is often a necessity to hold down one portion of the container while attempting to deploy another portion. This arrangement very often necessitates more than one individual to articulate and deploy the container, or conversely to collapse the combination after use.
Further, in such prior art constructions, where the container is attached to the pallet along a lower edge periphery, there often exists gaps between the lower edges of the container and the top surface of the pallet which would allow for the contents within the container to migrate out between the pallet and the lower edges of the container. In an effort to overcome this undesirable problem, additional flaps must be manually and repetitively deployed to seal the edges requiring further effort, labor costs and time.
The prior art pallet-container combinations include U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,637 to Shippell which discloses a pallet-container combination wherein the container portion requires substantial effort to deploy and collapse. To configure the container portion into the deployed position, for example, bottom flaps 56 and 58 must in Shippell be manually repositioned from their non-deployed position. Similarly, upon reconfiguration of the container from the deployed position to the collapsed position, the bottom flaps 56 and 58 must again be manually repositioned.
Additional prior art pallet-container combinations include U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,010 to Carufel/Zeman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,559 to Nederveld: U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,898 to Nederveld; U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,507 to Delplanque; U.S. Pat. No. 4,880,141 to Gossler, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,687 to Silcott, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,461 to Bolton Sr.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,545,482 to Novatny. While this prior art relates in varying degrees to the present invention, they lack the many advantages of the present invention.
For example, while disclosing a collapsible container Carufel/Zeman '010, Delplanque '507 and Bolton Sr. '461 additionally disclose the need for further support members inserted into the container portion to provide support and rigidity to the container, Similarly, silcott '687, gossler '141 and Nederveld '559 lack automatic deployment and collapse prompting features while requiring considerable effort to assemble. Nederveld '898 provides for embodiments lacking the sealing of portions of the lower periphery of the container.
It is thus an object of the present invention to create an inexpensive, easy to assemble pallet-container apparatus that can be utilized with a variety of pallets formed into a variety of sizes and out of a variety of materials.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a container portion that requires a minimized amount of time and effort, by one individual, to deploy and collapse with a few operational steps. In so doing, it is an object to achieve automatic prompting towards articulated transition of many of the container's panels and flaps.
An additional object of the invention, is to provide a container portion that has an automatically sealed lower periphery to prevent inadvertent or accidental migration of the contents within the container to the outside environment.
Similarly it is an object to minimize the amount of materials utilized to form the container portion and to minimize the overall profile of the container-pallet combination when not in use and fully collapsed.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent in light of the present specification and drawings.